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Why do Low-Income Couples Marry Less and Divorce More?

July 10, 2012 | Christelyn Karazin |

This news release came in my inbox this morning, and I though it was significant enough to share it here in it’s entirety. What I find ironic is decades ago, it was high-income people who led the trends for marrying less and divorcing more. Poor people were aghast by this…remember? Then for a variety of reasons, it seems that the trend trickled down, but then more educated folks realized that single parenting and divorce ain’t the business, but poor people don’t seem to have gotten the memo.

Why do Low-Income Couples Marry Less and Divorce More?
(This study is published in the Journal of Marriage and Family)
People with lower incomes value the institution of marriage just as much as those with higher incomes and have similar romantic standards for marriage, according to a new study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family. The new research suggests that government initiatives to strengthen marriage among low-income populations should move beyond promoting the value of marriage and instead focus on the actual problems that low-income couples face.

The study, which analysed results from a survey of 6,012 people, was carried out by Dr Thomas Trail and Dr Benjamin Karney from the University of California Los Angeles. Although previous research has shown that divorce rates are higher and marriage rates are lower among low-income populations in the US, the researchers found that on most measures low-income respondents held more traditional views towards marriage than respondents on higher incomes.

Although low-income and high-income respondents reported similar romantic standards and similar problems with relationship processes such as communication, low-income respondents were more likely than affluent couples to report that their romantic relationships were negatively affected by economic and social issues such as money problems, drinking and drug use.

“Over the past 15 years, efforts to tackle declining marriage rates and increasing divorce rates among low-income couples in the USA have been guided by assumptions about why there are fewer low-income marriages and why a higher percentage fail” said Dr Trail. “The aim of our study was to separate the myth from the reality.”

Previous research has focused on specific low-income groups including unmarried mothers and cohabiting couples with children. This is the first study to use a comprehensive survey to compare the attitudes and experiences of people from a range of incomes, and the findings provide important new information about how similar people with low- and high-incomes are in their values, standards, and experiences of marriage.

The researchers solicited the views of a stratified random sample of 4,508 Florida residents, with smaller random samples from California (500), Texas (502) and New York (502).

66% of the respondents were female, 53% were married and 61% were white. A further 14% were Black and 19% were from non-White or Black Latino/Hispanic communities. Interviews were conducted over the telephone and lasted an average of 27 minutes.

The average age of the respondents was just under 46 years. Self-reported income put 29% in the low-income category, 26% in the moderate-income category and 35% in the high-income category. Just under 10% were receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).

The team found that, compared to people with higher incomes, those with lower incomes held similar values toward marriage and were less likely to approve of divorce. However, lower income respondents were more likely than were higher income respondents to value the economic aspects of marriage, including the husband and wife having good jobs.

“Prompted by the belief that the institution of marriage is in crisis among the poor, the federal government has spent $1 billion on initiatives to strengthen marriage among low-income populations,” said Dr Benjamin Karney. “Often these are based on the assumption that there must be something wrong with how people on low incomes view marriage or that they just are not very good at managing intimate relationships.”

“We found that people with low incomes value marriage as an institution, have similar standards for choosing a marriage partner and experience similar problems with managing their relationships,” concluded Trail. “We suggest that initiatives to strengthen marriage among the poor should also take social issues into account, as they can place a tremendous amount of stress on a marriage.”

I was under the impression that lower income couples that married were less likely to divorce simply because it’s easier to remain married than go it alone at that economic level, but I’m guessing this isn’t case.

CarlaRose

@Toni_M But when you don’t have anything, nothing to split – no homes, no cars of any value, bank accounts that has a significant amount of money, etc, its easy to walk away and divorce if need be. Of course, its harder if there are kids involved.

@Toni_M @CarlaRose I don’t know about other states but in the state of Washington if you’re fighting over property or having difficulty trying to figure out what you’re going to do w/ kids, you can have a company draft of your docs, for $500 and you can file yourself, filing fee is $280 this state requires a parenting plan for folks w/ kids but if you’re not disagreeing that’s easy. Now, Washington is allowing us paralegals to do what is called limited practice, so after 9/1 if you have simple stuff you could go get a licensed paralegal and have them do it. The thought was to give low income ppl access to legal representation. Which I think is great, b/c some of those women are in abusive relationships & can’t divorce ppl b/c of the prohibitive cost.

“However, lower income respondents were more likely than were higher income respondents to value the economic aspects of marriage, including the husband and wife having good jobs.”

In other words poor people want to get married but…

1. They don’t have good jobs and want to get married when they become ‘stable,’ but most of them are never going to become as stable as those form the middle- and upper-class (at least not until after prime reproductive age, anyway)

2. If a woman has to choose between having a man and having a child, she will choose having a child because raising children is a source of self-esteem, a sense of accomplishment, and gives her a chance to love someone who she knows will always love her back

3. Men in lower-class communities are not very stable, and thus, not very dependable, and thus, a man from a lower class community makes a better sperm donor than husband/father

CarlaRose

@Jamila I can related to #1.

Bellydancer

Believe me when I tell you that there nothing worse then a house full of broke folks trying to make it. They will practically kill each other over every little thing. My own family and the neighborhood where i grew up is proof of this.
Do not be the only one in a house full of broke ass people and have a job cuz you will be cussing folks every day over your stuff.
One of the reasons why people with property and money stay together is because they have something to lose, poor people don’t.

Jamila

@Bellydancer “Believe me when I tell you that there nothing worse then a house full of broke folks trying to make it”

I know.

I was having a conversation with my father once and I said something to the effect that in poor households so many arguments get started over an amount of money that would be considered chump change to more stable people.

I wonder what happened between the old days and now, I know it’s very tough to be married and raise a child if you’re low income. The continual stress of not having enough money, the constant chaos of changing circumstances, the man or woman maybe suffering from emotional issues they may not be able to get help for, it’s not like they can go to a marriage counselor, yes drinking and drug use, so its a toxic mix for a marriage but these were the same circumstances as in yesteryear. I think today their is a lot less stigma with divorce and the no-fault divorce which began in the 1970s makes it much easier for women to divorce men, not saying that’s good or bad just how it is, believe me previous to that it wasn’t easy to get out of a marriage. I know of low-income couples in my own family and other ppl I know. They can be chaotic households, lots of fighting, drinking, drug use but I think that’s used as an escape from the chaos. Some are married, some are not but either way it can be very stressful.

Brenda55

“The poorest men have had even sharper financial and romantic declines: men in the bottom quartile of earnings have had a wage cut of 60 percent, and a contemporaneous drop in marriage rates to about 50 percent, from 86 percent.”

Sorry guys but is is about that bread winning. Poor women have access to all kinds of safety nets.
Further those safety nets come into play so long as dad is NOT in the home.

Sure, the net is getting frayed but is it still there so it does not take much to make the decision to marry…or not.
A poor woman can vet with the best of them so if there is no real advantage to having dude around legally then no, they will not insist on putting a ring on it.

@Brenda55 This is true poor women have a safety net so if she decides to marry him, then divorce him she’s probably equalling out or maybe doing slightly better. Like I said b/c of no fault women can leave any time they wish. Previous to 1970s marriage was not just for love but out of necessity, also their was huge social stigma in not being married & having kids amongst all classes of ppl during those times. My mother’s cousin, now my mom was born in 1946, but her cousin had 8 kids, started young, wasn’t married until about the 5th or 6th one but all the kids previous to that were taken to be raised by other married family members or married couples in the neighborhood. They were not raised by her as a single mother in the 50s & 60s.

Jamila

@eugeniaberg @Brenda55 “This is true poor women have a safety net so if she decides to marry him, then divorce him she’s probably equalling out or maybe doing slightly better.”

I think its about having peace of mind. If a poor woman divorces a poor man the she will probably be just as poor or even poorer, BUT and this is a big but, she will be poor without having the stress of living with an alcoholic or an abuser or someone she just plain doesn’t doesn’t like anymore. She’s still in poverty but she less stressed out from having to be with a man she doesn’t want to be with; a peaceful household is something that you can’t put a price tag on.

In almost 90% of divorces there is no alimony awarded. Basically, in order for a woman to get alimony she has to have been a stay-at-home mom for many years.

@Jamila @Brenda55 I think you’re right, if you are in a destructive stressful relationship, you want out and now it’s easier to get out than it was previously. She may not be equal in income but she may gain some piece of mind. The history of marriage is complex, it’s not all romance and flowers. I’m very familiar with the fact that most women don’t get alimony, having worked in and taught family law. Yes a peaceful household is certainly something you can’t put a price tag on, I was never encouraging women to stay on destructive relationships for the sake of being in one, never in my life would I suggest that and I hope that’s not what is coming across. I divorced someone b/c I was destructive relationship and I was glad I had the option b/c previous to the 70s many women didn’t.

Jamila

@Brenda55 One of the more interesting laws that I could see being put in place would be if women who have children with men who have had no job/verifiable income for a certain number of years would be ineligible for cash assistance or child support.

Brenda55

@Jamila That is pretty punitive and difficult to administer.

What is the cut off point ? Jobless at the time of conception, after? If so how long after? What if the pregnancy was the result of her birth control failing? Rape?

Governments have to do a cost benefit analysis. It would cost more to administer than any gain that would be derived from it.

I know what you are thinking. If the woman knew that she would not have any support as a result of having a kid by an unemployed man then maybe she would think twice about sleeping with him.

Sorry, most human beings are not wired that way.

Jamila

@Brenda55 “Sorry, most human beings are not wired that way.”

Good point, and oh so true. Which is why I know that poor women will continue to have babies with the men that are available to them, and if those men wouldn’t be great husbands/fathers it doesn’t really matter. We all make due with whats available to us.

Which reminds me of a post Halima did some time ago that stuck with me. I wish I could find it. But the gist of what she was talking about was how women/girls will always have babies, no matter the circumstances–it’s the men and the rest of the community who decided what type of community those babies will be born into.

Jamila

@Brenda55 “That is pretty punitive and difficult to administer. ”

Not really. I’ve worked for state government in a position where I was privy to what information is and isn’t collected about people. The state knows how much money you make every single month because employers have to report it. It doesn’t take all year for that information to come in. The only exception would be is if someone is self-employed, and then the information isn’t updated as quickly.

“What is the cut off point ? Jobless at the time of conception, after? If so how long after?”

I would say “jobless for at least half of the last 36 months” or something like that.

“What if the pregnancy was the result of her birth control failing? Rape?”
Doesn’t matter why the pregnancy occurred.

Oneof thegirls

@Brenda55 Yup. Which is why I was not made at Romney’s comment about the poor. CNN went nuts. But it is true. They get gov’t assistance. I cannot speak on the poor but a friend sais that the help you do get is peanuts. I am sure there are those that know how to play the game though.

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